Stephen Sutcliffe and Graham Eatough with The Whitworth have been announced as the winners of the Contemporary Art Society Annual Award. Now in its 7th edition, the prize offers £40,000 to a UK institution to commission a major new artwork for their permanent collection by an artist who is not yet well represented in museum collections in this country. The winners were selected among a shortlist of four pairings, including Pablo Helguera with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Ragnar Kjartansson with Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and Artes Mundi and Katrina Palmer with The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute.
For the Whitworth, the artists will create a film based on the first and last chapters of Anthony Burgess’ Enderby novels, premiering for the centenary of the author’s birth in 2017, and will explore the cultural figure of ‘the artist’, and ideas of authenticity and posterity through theatrical performances and filmic collage.
24 November 2015.